Destiny awaits Willow Grey, the Chosen
One. Sooner or later, she has to face
the Lamia. But not just yet. For she's just a novice when it comes to
magic and weapons, and when to use them and when other means of persuasion are a more prudent solution.

It’s
a good thing Henu the Wealdsman is with her.
He knows the land of Tirlane, and he has the magic elixir, stardraught to help him with his
spells. Sad to say, they’re about to
leave Tirlane, and journey out into the Bound Sea, and this is new territory
for both of them.

But the Pale Ship awaits them, and it will guide them to the places Fate
wants them to go to. And since the ship
steers itself (well,
technically, the cerulethe does the steering but let’s not split hairs),
the lack of a crew is not a hindrance.
So there’s nothing to do but get on with it, and face whatever lies in store for both of them.

Even if it is their deaths.

What’s To Like...

Voyage of the Pale Ship continues the chronicles
of Willow Grey, a young girl who has stumbled into a strange, and
sometimes brutal, fantasy world. It is
89 pages long, so it’s really a novella, not a full-length book. Still, it has plenty of action, and will therefore probably appeal to YA boys as well as girls.

There’s a very handy glossary, listing both
the characters and places in the tale, at the back of the book. For a change, I was savvy enough to bookmark
it before
I started reading the story. There’s
also a map back there, but I didn’t use it much; the story is essentially Henu
and Willow sailing along to wherever the Pale Ship decides to take them. It would’ve been nice to have a short “The Story So Far” blurb, as it’s been a
year since I read the first book. But I
went back and reread the last section of The Door
of Dreams (reviewed here), and that caught me up to speed nicely.

Willow
and Henu cross paths with some kewl beasties along the way, among which are a
kraken, a giant, some No Men, harpies, and a couple of blokes that reminded me
of the trolls that Bilbo Baggins encounters in The
Hobbit. If curses and magic are
your cup of tea, you’ve come to the right tale.

The main storyline is Willow growing into her new-to-her
role. Besides learning what her magical short sword is capable of, Willow also has a bunch of situational ethics
thrown her way, and I always like those.
Sometimes you just have to thwack the baddie, other times a bit of
compassion is a much better tactic.

The book is written in English, not American, so you run across words
like harbour, recognisably, no-one, etc.
I’m quite partial to books written in English. There is some R-rated stuff: a few cuss
words, a couple of attempted sexual assaults, and the subject of
cannibalism. I assume these are all
okay for YA readers, but I’d think twice before letting a juvenile read it.

The
ending has a couple of twists that I didn’t see coming, and presumably sets up the
showdown with the Lamia in the next book.
This is not a standalone book; you really should read The Door of Dreams first.

Kewlest New Word. . .

Cantrip(n.) : a
mischievous or playful act; a trick. (a Scotticism)

Excerpts...

The woman was
about to scream when Willow jumped on her and covered her mouth with both
hands. The sound that came out was a
muffled squawk. “Be quiet,” Willow said,
“all we want is your clothes. We won’t
hurt you, I promise, okay?”

The woman bit
into the palm of Willow’s hand. (loc.
293)

Bhorak told
Willow their story as he sharpened the mottled knives. “An old wizard made us ages ago. The perfect warriors, so he thought, because
when we get hurt, all we need to do is eat someone else’s bits and we grow back
what we lost. See my eyes, my ears, my
teeth? All belonged to some other bugger
once. We are what we eat.”

Voyage
of the Pale Ship sells for $2.99 at Amazon, although I snagged
it when it was temporarily discounted to $0.99. The first book in the series, The Door of Dreams also sells for $2.99. Greg James has a slew of other e-books
available. Most of the novels are $2.99,
but if it’s the first book in a trilogy it’s often free. He also has several e-novellas available,
which are in the 50-120 page range, and go
for $1.99.

“What’s with the cats?” (loc 183)

Full
disclosure: I am not keen on novellas. I
tend to pass on any book that’s less than 180 pages long, and prefer ones that
are 250-450 pages in length. The only
other novella I’ve read is reviewed here.

The inherent problem with novellas (novellae?) is there are just not enough pages to develop any
depth – in plotlines, in characters, in the tension. For instance, here (if I counted correctly), there are 9 action-packed “trials” for
Willow and Henu, but in a book with only 89 pages, each one is over before it has a chance to resonate with the reader.

When you do the pages-per-action math, there’s simply no time for any tension to
develop. And it has to be said, if
you’re a baddie facing a wizard with stardraught
and a hero with a magic sword, odds are that your demise will come in a very short period of time. I pity the fiend who picks a fight with these two.

To
boot, being OCD, I tend to deliberately slow down my reading sessions when I’m
reading a short book. I’m a firm
believer in the adage “Read a book in a day; forget it in a week. Read a book in a week, remember it for
months.” So I read Voyage of the Pale Ship in 10-to-20-page slices. In retrospect, I have a feeling I
should’ve read it in one sitting.

7 Stars. Listen, despite its brevity, I enjoyed this book, and was happy to read the next segment in this series. Add 1 star
if you’re a Young Adult and have a book report due tomorrow. Voyage of the
Pale Ship just might save your bacon. Add another 1 star if you happen to like novellas.

Monday, April 24, 2017

Is there any sorrow so profound as that of a
parent when a son or daughter unexpectedly dies? It can happen at any moment, no matter what
the age of the child; no matter what the social status of the parent: rich or
poor, peasant or powerful, young or old.
Even the ruler of an empire is not immune.

In
this case, Nakhtamun, heir to the throne and the eldest son of the Pharaoh Seti
I, is ambushed and slain during an excursion into Canaan, to the north of
Egypt. Seti is far away to the south, in
Nubia, when it occurs. To boot, an inept
messenger sent to inform Seti of his son’s passing, neglects to tell him, so it
is weeks before he returns to the palace and learns of the tragedy. It means he didn’t even make it to the
entombment of Nakhtamun, and thus never had a chance to say his goodbyes.

The result is a devastating grief for the Pharaoh. But hey, there’s no time for mourning; he’s
the head of a powerful kingdom, and has to soldier on with affairs of state.

Or
does he?

What’s To Like...

Seti I is a historical figure who ruled Egypt
from approximately 1290-1279 BC. He had
some notable military victories (see the Wikipedia article on him here),
but not much is known about him beyond that.
So this is fertile ground for storytelling. I assumed, based on the other Diana Wilder
book I’ve read (reviewed here), that Mourningtide
was going to be a Murder-Mystery, but it’s actually a pleasant piece of
Historical Fiction. Not to worry; I like
both genres.

There
are only 4 discrete settings: Canaan, Memphis, Thebes, and the area around the town of the
tomb-makers, Deir el Medina, but once again I liked the “feel” that the author
creates for daily life, both courtly and common, in ancient Egypt. I particularly enjoyed the portrayal of the
interactions between underlings and royalty.
The Pharaoh is, after all, considered to be a god.

The chapters are short, so you always have a good place to stop. The Cast of Characters is now placed in the front
of the book, a small but appreciated improvement over Pharaoh’s
Son. Bookmark that page; you will
be using it a lot to keep track of the characters you meet.

There’s
some action at the beginning and some more close to the end, but not a lot in
between. However, this is Historical
Fiction, not Action-Adventure, and the writing was good enough to keep my
interest. There aren’t very many plot
twists either; it’s pretty obvious how the Seti/Djedi training thread was going
to turn out from the get-go. There is
some Romance for the female readers, but this is not a romance novel, so that’s
okay.

The ending is similarly untwisty, but at one point it did put a lump in
my throat. The epilogue was both solemn
and satisfying.

Excerpts...

The man was down
on the ground, curled into a tight ball, his arms shielding his head. Seti could see blood.

“Kill him!”

“Stand back, all
of you, or fight me!” Djedi
snapped. “Twenty against one! And he armed only with a staff! Were you sired by dotards, that you should
fight like this? Were you trained to
arms by old women? Or half-wits?”

“You trained us!” The words had come from the edge of the
crowd.(loc. 5794)

Seti eyed the
amusement in Ptahemhat’s expression and swore again. “So I am to be saddled with you!”

“It would seem
so,” Ptahemhat said. “His Holiness
thought it shouldn’t be too difficult for you.
He says, in fact, that I have grown up to be a fine and sensible man
after being such a pain in the ass as a youngster.”

“Did he actually
say that?” Seti demanded.

“Well, words to
that effect.” (loc.
5873)

Kindle Details...

Mourningtide sells for $3.98 at Amazon, which is
the same price for each of the other three books in the series. Diana Wilder has two other e-books available,
and they, too, go for $3.98.

“I’ve never known an ass to
do anything but bray.” (loc.
969)

Some
of the reviews at Amazon and Goodreads were critical of how Diana Wilder
portrayed the female characters in Mourningtide. They felt they weren’t “strong” enough.

I
think this is a case of “damned if you
do, damned if you don’t”. The role
of women in ancient times was quite different than that of the 20th-21st
century, and trying to instill modern-day ethics into a piece of Historical
Fiction, while laudable, diminishes its believability.

Moreover,
I thought the women in Mourningtidewere
strong, at least in the context of the time.
Seti gets ogled by a group of them, and they’re not particularly worried whether he’ll overhear their remarks about his bod. And when he does strike up a conversation
with them, they respond as equals, not subordinates. So personally, I thought it was done well.

8 Stars.
Add 1 star
if reading about dealing with the loss of a son or daughter resonates with you,
or if you like being immersed in an ancient setting. Subtract 1 Star
if you love plot twists and/or thrills-&-spills in your readings.

It’s a most extraordinary gift that the young American intelligence officer,
Tyrone Slothrop has. He’s stationed in London,
during the closing weeks of World War 2, when the Germans are trying one last,
desperate tactic – blitzing London with as many V-2 rockets as they can launch.

Women find Slothrop disarmingly attractive, and he has no trouble
finding plenty willing to go to bed with him.
Anytime, anyplace; it doesn’t matter.
He’s even tacked a map of London above his desk, and pasted colored
stars on it, showing where his “conquests” have taken place. Does the man ever sleep?

But his British intelligence agents have detected a pattern in those
stars. Whenever Slothrop adds a another one (along with the
girl’s name) to the map, within a day or two, a V-2 rocket hits that
very spot. Curiously, Slothrop seems
unaware of his “gift”. So the prudent thing to do is send out a
team of shrinks to tail him, to find out exactly how his "talent" works.

But
be very careful, shrinks. After all,
Slothrop is an intelligence officer, and if he catches you following him, it
may trigger an outbreak of paranoia.

Of
course, you aren't paranoid if they really are out to get you, are you?

What’s To Like...

Gravity’s Rainbow is divvied up into 4 unequal
parts and covers the time period from December 1944 through September
1945. The settings are late- and
post-war Europe. There are no chapters,
but Thomas Pynchon inserts “breaks” (in my edition, a row of squares) to indicate
breaks in scene or time. These vary in
length from 1 to about 25 pages, and provide timely places to stop to give your
brain a rest.

You’ll need these because there are 400+ characters introduced by name (per Wikipedia), a slew of run-on
sentences, uncountable plot tangents, and flashbacks galore (plus one
flash-forward) with no warning whatsoever. FWIW, I found it very helpful to read the Wikipedia article on it first, to
know which characters are important, and to distinguish between the main
plotline(s) and the tangents.

This
may sound like I’m bashing the book, but Pynchon’s writing style, like Kurt Vonnegut’s, is superb enough where he can break all the literary rules and get
away with it. Gravity’s Rainbow is a vocabularian’s delight (I’ll let you look up “smegma” for
yourself; it appears multiple times), and I am in total awe of the
magic worked by the punctuation used to make those run-on sentences coherent.

This
is not a book for the kiddies; R-rated topics and passages abound. Wikipedia claims Gravity's Rainbow lost the 1974 Pulitzer
Prize because of a couple pages dealing with coprophilia.
There’s lots of sex and drugs, and rockets roll; and metaphysics (séances, tarot
cards, etc.) gets a fair amount of ink too.
It helps if you have some command of the German language. Pynchon inserts lots of songs which, while I
didn’t find them impressive, did provide refreshing breaks in the narrative.

The
tangents can be distracting: I still don’t see any relevance about killing dodo
birds, a trip down a toilet, lightbulb babies, and some choreography by lab
rats. But they are also well thought-out
and interesting, and I enjoyed things like the Rossini-Beethoven debate (pgs. 447-8), and the cameo appearance
by Mickey Rooney (pg. 388). Moreover,
there is a tinge of absurdism that runs throughout the story, such as a trained
octopus assailant, and hashish-laced hollandaise.

The book builds to a dramatic ending, wherein a number of
threads/characters get resolved, although it would be silly to think that
everything in an 800-page epic would be completely tied up. It goes without saying that this is a
standalone novel, with no sequel, and I pity any poor fool who tries to make a
movie out of it.

Excerpts...

Her name was Amy
Sprue, a family renegade turned Antinomian at age 23 and running mad over the
Berkshire countryside, ahead of Crazy Sue Dunham by 200 years, stealing babies,
riding cows in the twilight, sacrificing chickens up on Snodd’s Mountain. Lots of ill will about those chickens, as you
can imagine. The cows and babies always,
somehow, came back all right. Amy Sprue
was not, like young skipping Dorothy’s antagonist, a mean witch.(pg. 334)

“Beethoven was
one of the architects of musical freedom – he submitted to the demands of
history, despite his deafness. While
Rossini was retiring at the age of 36, womanizing and getting fat, Beethoven
was living a life filled with tragedy and grandeur.”

“So?” is Saure’s
customary answer to that one. “Which
would you rather do? The point is,”
cutting off Gustav’s usually indignant scream, “a person feels good listening to Rossini. All you feel like listening to Beethoven is
going out and invading Poland. Ode to
Joy indeed. The man didn’t even have a
sense of humor.”(pg.
447)

Kewlest New Word…

Fairing(v.) : (of
the weather) becoming fair.(logical, but I’ve never seen ‘fair’ used as a verb
before)

Others
: too many to list.

Death has come in the pantry door: stands watching them, iron and
patient, with a look that says try to
tickle me. (pg.
61)

I
read Gravity’s Rainbow as a result of a
Christmastime-initiated reading challenge, and it took me 42 days to get
through it. I read several “light”
e-books as well during that time (you’re crazy if you try to slog straight through the 776
pages), and it helped that my wife is taking an online class on
Sunday afternoons, which provided me 3-4 hours of quality reading time every
weekend.

Yes, it is a difficult read, and I had to fight the urge to “skim”
through major parts of it. Yes, there are lots of paragraphs that I still have no comprehension of.
Yes, I’m sure I’d have a better understanding of those passages if I were to reread
it, but that’s not going to happen.

No,
I don’t think, as some propose, that Gravity’s
Rainbow is the greatest American novel ever. My vote in that regard would be Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five, but you’re allowed to
disagree. Yes, my main feeling upon
completing it was a sense of accomplishment.

But to be clear, I did enjoy reading this book, I do
think Thomas Pynchon is a gifted writer, and I will recommend it to
anyone who wants to be both challenged and entertained by an epic piece of
contemporary fiction.

Stylistically, I found Gravity’s
Rainbow very similar to David Foster Wallace’s Infinite
Jest, which I read for an earlier reading challenge, and which is reviewed here.
They are both monumentally challenging, but well worth the effort.

8 Stars. Subtract 1 star
if you have a book report due tomorrow, and have chosen this book as your
assignment. You’re screwed, dude.

Saturday, April 15, 2017

“My name is Eugene Debs Hartke, and I was born
in 1940. I was named at the behest of my
maternal grandfather, Benjamin Wills, who was a Socialist and an Atheist, and
nothing but a groundskeeper at Butler University.”

Thus
starts Hocus Pocus, wherein Eugene recounts
his life story, with most of the emphasis on the last couple of years, during
which he has had some quite severe ups and downs.

Through
a connection with his former CO in Nam, Gene obtained a teaching position at
Tarkington College, a private school in Scipio, New York for kids with learning
disorders. Alas, he eventually is fired
that position, and takes a similar job at Athena State Prison, just across the
lake from Tarkington.

But a prison
revolt leads to bloodshed, and Tarkington College becomes Tarkington
Reformatory, upon which Gene is promoted to head warden. In yet another twist of Fate, he’s now an
inmate at the same prison he used to be the warden of.

And so it goes.

What’s To Like...

There
are no spoilers in the above section; the reader is told all that within the
first 4% of the book. The main plot, and
Kurt Vonnegut has never been known to pay undue attention to such a thing, is basically
Gene telling you how he arrived at his present state of incarceration.

The book is written in the first-person POV (Gene’s), and is mostly stream-of-consciousness
with lots of flashbacks. For unknown
reasons, Vonnegut spurned writing out any numbers. So: “Vietnam was 1 big hallucination” instead
of “one big hallucination”. There are
also “code phrases”, such as the titular “hocus pocus” standing for “bullsh*t”. The Griot™ computer program was way kewl. And it was fun to watch the protagonist
as he tries to compare the number of people he killed in Vietnam versus the
number of women he’s been to bed with.

The writing is of course superb, and there’s
the anticipated abundance of Vonnegut wit, although for me, it didn’t seem to sparkle
as much as usual. Perhaps this was because the themes in Hocus Pocus – the Vietnam
war, the social castes in America, the rich vs. the poor class divisions, the broken-down jail
system, etc. – are all familiar Vonnegut subjects.

The
book ends with Gene becoming an inmate in his own prison, which is a logical terminus, but I thought it was anti-climactic, since he doesn’t really share
any of his experiences from behind bars. But
perhaps that’s covered in another one of his late-in-life books, Jailbird, which is sitting on my Kindle, waiting
to be read. There are some twists
at the end, but they aren’t surprising since Vonnegut/Gene tells us of them several
times along the story’s way.

As
with all of the author’s books, this is a standalone novel. Although there are some recurring characters
in Vonnegut novels, he doesn’t do
series. I personally think this is a
plus; you don’t miss a thing by not reading them in order.

Kewlest New Word. . .

Absquatulate(v.) : to
leave abruptly; to flee; to abscond. (Yankeeism)

Excerpts...

At least the
World will end, an event anticipated with great joy by many. It will end very soon, but not in the year
2000, which has come and gone. From that
I conclude that God Almighty is not heavily into Numerology.(loc. 66)

“Did the letter
say why you were named Rob Roy?” I inquired.

“No,” he
said. “I assumed it must be because she
liked the novel by that name by Sir Walter Scott.”

“That sounds
right,” I said. What good would it do
him or anybody else to know that he was named for 2 shots of Scotch, 1 shot of
sweet vermouth, cracked ice, and a twist of lemon peel?(loc. 3680)

Kindle Details...

Hocus
Pocus sells for $6.47 at Amazon. The rest of Vonnegut’s novels are normally in
the $4.99-$9.99
range, but if you keep your eyes peeled, you’ll find that Amazon frequently
discounts them, one at a time, to $1.99, which is a fantastic price if
you have the patience to wait Amazon out.
I’ve noticed that Amazon quite often discounts books by deceased writers. I wonder if that’s because the authors are no longer around to protest the pricing policies of their works.

“Plutonium! Now there’s the stuff to put hair on a
microbe’s chest.” (loc
2513)

Kurt
Vonnegut was born on 11 November 1922 and died on 11 April 2007. He wrote 14 novels over the course of his
career, plus a dozen shorter pieces of fiction and 9 works of non-fiction. Hocus Pocus
was novel #13, and was published in 1990 when Vonnegut was 68 years old.

It’s
not that this is a bad novel; it’s just that there isn’t anything new for anyone
who’s read other books by Vonnegut. The main
themes enumerated earlier will be already familiar to any inveterate Vonnegut fan;
they’re just dressed up with different plot details this time out. Certainly writing about the Vietnam War in
1990 can only be viewed as old hat.

While
reading Hocus Pocus, it occurred to me that Vonnegut might have written this to be kind of his swan
song. For instance, his Elders of Tralfamadore make a
cameo appearance, and they have no literary reason to be here. I even can’t help wondering if the title
itself, which we’ve already noted as being code for “Bullsh*t”, isn’t a small,
subtle joke by the author to his readers.

7 Stars. Hocus Pocus
may not be Vonnegut’s best effort, but it doesn’t change my opinion that he is
the greatest American author of the latter half of the 20th
century. Don’t agree with me? Name a better choice.

Tuesday, April 11, 2017

For
Sam Horn, this is a long-awaited day: it’s his first day of retirement, he’s here at the bank to make a deposit, and he’s feeling good. For thirty-three years he’s been an agent for
various spoiled movie celebrities, catering to their every whim and convincing
studios they should put up with his clients’ insane demands. But that’s all behind him now, and nothing’s
going to ruin his day.

Well,
maybe not. When a gang of bank robbers
takes the whole place hostage, things could turn ugly. But fortunately, Sam’s mastered the art of
persuasion during his long career in Tinsel-town. When his clients won’t be in the latest movie
unless they get a gallon jug filled with red M&Ms, a bottle of whiskey made
in Scotland between the years 1950 and 1960, and a dressing room with excellent
Wifi reception, it’s up to her agent to sweet-talk the studio to feel good
about acquiescing.

It
helps, of course, that our would-be robbers are rather dim-witted. So it’s just another day at the job for Sam. He just needs to convince
them to set the hostages free, give themselves up, all in the belief that the
courts will give them a lighter sentence for cooperating so freely. No big deal.

It
works like a charm, Sam gets a small mention in the news reports, and he once
again settles down to begin enjoying his retirement.
So imagine his surprise when he gets a message that someone saw his
negotiating skills and wants to Sam to come to work for his company. The details, however, are hush-hush until he
commits.

Now why would they do that?

What’s To Like...

The Chronicles of M is the first installment in a
6-book series with the same name. The
series is complete, which is always nice to know. There's action immediately, although
thereafter it becomes somewhat sporadic.
This is a paranormal book, with the primary focus on zombies.

I liked Nicholas Forristal’s approach to
this. Zombies are generally portrayed as
slow-moving, brainless hero-fodder, and that gets old after a while. Here you’ll learn about the 5-stages of zombie-ism, and maybe even develop a bit of empathy for them.

I
also liked the relationship between the two main protagonists – our hero Sam
and our superhero “M”. Instead of being
buddy-buddies from the get-go, things are rather “frosty”. M’s kind of a butthead, and Sam has few
skills to complement his superhero pal. The
story is told in the first-person POV, mostly Sam’s, but a couple chapters are
from M’s perspective. There’s quite a
bit of cussing, almost all by M, but hey, he’s just a hot-headed kid, isn’t he?

There aren’t a lot of characters to keep track
of – just focus on Sam, M, Thomas, and Marcus and you’ll be okay. Don’t be fooled by a cameo appearance by
someone named Ned; I’m pretty sure that was a pair of typos that should’ve been
Todd. The settings are similarly sparse
– once you get beyond the NYC intro, you’re pretty much limited to the United Hero Defense ("UHD") headquarters and an out-in-the-sticks town called Dead Man’s Bluff.

The
ending is okay, but not spectacular. Sam
decides to sign up with the UHD (well, you knew that was gonna happen, elsewise there’d
be no series, right?), and the causes of M’s mood issues are
revealed, if not resolved. There are
lots more unanswered questions; presumably these are addressed as the series
progresses. Indeed, the ending felt more
like a pause than a climax, albeit at a logical point. But Nicholas
Forristal’s writing skills were sufficient to
keep things from bogging down.

Excerpts...

I sit up in my
chair, “Okay, so M is a crime fighter, like a superhero? And you are his sidekick? Do you two wear costumes? Can you fly?”
I let the sarcasm flow out of me.
M is maybe nineteen, at most.
Thomas actually thinks I’ll believe M is as old as I am?

“Costume? Have you ever tried to do anything in
spandex, or even a suit? I assure you,
it’s no fun.” (loc.
414)

An explosion
knocks me on my backside. The door on
the left side shoots across the hall and slams into the opposing wall with a
thunderous boom. Fire peeks out of the
doorway as black clouds of smoke roll across the ceiling. A man screams, “I told you not to do that!”

Another voice
responds, “Sorry, forgot the catalyst.”

“Catalyst? Are you kidding me? If you had used the catalyst we’d be dead
right now, you idiot!”

“Don’t call me an
idiot, jerk.”

“Don’t call me a
jerk, idiot.”(loc.
1883)

Kindle Details...

Chronicles
of M sells for $0.99 at Amazon. The other five books in the series go for $2.99
each. You can buy the whole series
bundled together for $15.94, but that saves you
absolutely nothing. And finally, you can
buy books 1-3 bundled together for $6.99, but if you do that, you need
to take a remedial math course.

To steal a line from Vonnegut, M is “unstuck in time.” (loc. 2062)

There
are some quibbles. While I wouldn’t call
the pacing slow, it certainly isn’t brisk either. We don’t meet our first zombie until
50%-Kindle. Everything before that is
world-building. This is necessary, I
suppose, for the 6-book series, but it’s going to be disappointing to anyone expecting
the usual zombie-must-find-brains
mayhem.

The main snag for me was the lack of a main storyline. The blurb makes it sound like it’s a tale about investigating some zombie killings, and it’s true that there's a plotline involving that. But it’s almost a story tangent, and from
start to finish, it lasts about 10%-Kindle.
Resolving it is neither difficult nor tense.

All
this isn’t helped by a number of side-stories that became a bit tedious. I counted four of them – the tour of the HQ,
the “mad baker”, Marcus’s backstory, and then M’s backstory as well. Do they add to the world-building? Yes, definitely. Do they keep you on the edge of your
seat? No.

In general, Chronicles of M reminded me of the first Men in Black movie, where
Will Smith spends a lot of time trying to figure out what the heck is going
on. But there, a galaxy needed
saving. Here, you have to be content
with just figuring things out.

7 Stars. I’m unsure how much significance to put on
these quibbles. It could be that
Nicholas Forristal intends this first book to simply be an introduction to the rest of
the series: get the characters onstage; get the world-building out of the way,
and set the tone. If the next five books
are action-packed with compelling storylines, this is a small price (literally and
figuratively) to pay. But if
the next five books have more backstories than thrills and spills, then things
could drag.

Dirk Gently, proprietor and sole employee of
the Holistic Detective Agency, has a job!
It’s even a paying one, and he sure can use the money.

Mr. Geoff Anstey is convinced that a 7-foot-tall, shaggy-haired,
green-eyed monster is trying to kill him.
With a scythe, no less. And he’s
willing to pay Dirk a tidy sum to be his bodyguard.

Dirk’s on his way to collect his first payment. But the police cars parked all around the Anstey residence are not a
good sign.Neither is the crime scene
tape roping off the area.Dirk has a bad
feeling as he ducks under the tape and enters the home.

Things get even worse when he finds Geoff Anstey’s head. On a record, on the turntable. Without the rest of his body. It appears Mr. Anstey will not be making his
initial payment.

What’s To Like...

The main theme of The
Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul, “when
gods are past their prime”, has been done before. It’s one of my favorite niche genres, and
books dealing with it are reviewed here, here, and here. AFAIK, it was first examined in an old (black and white)Star Trek TV episode, although I wouldn't be surprised to find out there are
earlier sci-fi or fantasy examples.

The
first half of the book is pretty disjointed, but I get the feeling this was
intentional. Douglas Adams throws all
sorts of threads and tangents at the reader, among them: Dirk’s refrigerator; an eagle with
an attitude; a song about a hot potato; a coca cola vending machine; a table
that turns into a kitten, mayhem at the airport (including a clueless would-be
boarder, a missing check-in girl, and an explosion); and a boy hooked on video
games in the same house as the decapitated client. But the second half of the book is devoted to
bringing all these things together and tying them up, which Adams succeeds in doing deftly, with the exception (unless I missed it) of the gamer kid.

If
you’re a Norse mythology buff, you’re in for a treat. I also liked the electronic I Ching
apparatus, the “non-fridge opening contest” between Dirk and his cleaning lady,
and the tip of the hat to “The Ride of The Valkyries”, which always induces
visions of Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd in my head.

The book is written in “English”, as opposed
to “American”, which means you occasionally have to decipher things like “hoovering”
the carpet. This is a standalone novel,
as well as a part of a series, cut short by Douglas Adams’ all-too-soon passing
away.

Kewlest New Word ...

Loured (v.) : frowned in a threatening way (often referring to clouds or the sky)

Others : Adumbrations(n., plural); Dordogne(n., proper, an
area in France)

Kindle Details...

Amazon
offers the e-book version of The Long Dark Tea-Time
of the Soulfor $6.99. But right now, you can get it and
Book One of this series, Dirk Gently’s Holistic
Detective Agency as a boxed set for only $4.99, thus saving a sizable chunk of cash. The third and final
book in the series, The Salmon of Doubt,
sells for $7.99. There also appear
to be a number of fan-books available, starting at $1.99.

Excerpts...

“You don’t look
like a private detective.”

“No private
detective looks like a private detective.
That’s one of the first rules of private detection.”

“But if no
private detective looks like a private detective, how does a private detective
know what he’s supposed not to look like?
Seems to me there’s a problem there.”

“Yes, but it’s
not one that keeps me awake at nights,” said Dirk in exasperation. (loc. 1221)

The Aries Rising
Record Group, which had been founded on Sixties ideals, or at least on what
passed for ideals in the Sixties, grown in the Seventies and then embraced the
materialism of the Eighties without missing a beat, was now a massive
entertainment conglomerate on both sides of the Atlantic. Dennis Hutch had stepped up into the top seat
when its founder had died of a lethal overdose of brick wall, taken while under
the influence of a Ferrari and a bottle of tequila.(loc. 2479)

What god would be hanging
around Terminal Two of Heathrow Airport trying to catch the 15:37 flight to
Oslo? (loc. 798)

The ending of The Long Dark Tea-Time of the
Soul felt a bit forced and anti-climactic to me. I almost got the impression Adams was so
happy about successfully tying all the subplot threads together that he forgot to do the
same with the main plotlines – why Geoff Anstey lost his head, and why the gods
were so weak.

The baddies were lethal but not particularly scary. And reading the book did require patience and
trusting that things would eventually come together. They do, but our two protagonists (Dirk and
Kate) don’t meet until 50%, and Kate and Thor don’t cross paths until 58%.

But
if you can hang in there with the story until then, the rest of the book is an utter delight. And of course, you’re treated to the
trademark Douglas Adams wit throughout the book.

7½ Stars. Not quite as good as Dirk
Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency (reviewed here), but still a worthwhile
read.